


Our Last Days As Children

by perfectlystill



Category: Friday Night Lights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 15:45:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlystill/pseuds/perfectlystill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She didn’t know she was friends with Tim Riggins, but if it saves her ten bucks, Julie’s not going to complain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Last Days As Children

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fleurlb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurlb/gifts).



It starts like this:

Julie walks into Tim’s shop, asking how much an oil change is.

Tim looks up, grease spread across his knuckles and under his chin, and says, “For everyone else or for you?”

Julie raises an eyebrow, smile tucked into the corner of her mouth. “For me?”

“Yeah. You.”

Tim’s starting at her, eyes wide, hinting at amusement. Julie looks down and worries her lip between her teeth, feeling a blush of embarrassment start creeping up her neck. She feels kind of stupid. She wishes she could just roll her eyes and feel annoyed instead. Julie thinks she used to be really good at that. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The friend-of-the-owner discount,” Tim says. 

Julie looks back up, smiling despite her teeth still digging into her bottom lip. “Oh.”

“Oh,” he repeats. 

She can’t tell if he’s mocking her or not, but she says, “Shut up,” anyway.

Tim smirks. “$20 sound fair?”

“Great.” 

She didn’t know she was friends with Tim Riggins, but if it saves her ten bucks, Julie’s not going to complain. 

 

 

 

She runs into him at the grocery store. 

Literally. 

She’s scanning the shelves for chickpeas, eye darting over green beans and kidney beans and northern beans when she bumps into him. “Oh, sorry,” Julie says, standing up straighter. “Tim.”

“Hey,” he responds, hands shoved into his pockets. He looks at her before turning back to the shelf. 

“Hi.” Julie leans down, acutely aware of how close they’re still standing. She finally finds the chickpeas, grabbing two cans and turning around to put them in her cart. “Nice to see you,” she says, because she feels like she should say something. 

“Are you going to be in town long?” 

Julie stops, clutches the cart’s handle. “I don’t know.” She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and leans one knee into the cart. “I’m staying with Lyla.”

“You are?” he asks, the question slow and thick.

Julie gulps. She doesn’t like to talk about it, and she doesn’t want people to ask. In Dillon it always seems like half the town already knows everything anyway, but Julie doesn’t think that makes it any better. It sucks just as much if they’re not asking because they already know and are gossiping about you the next aisle over. “Yeah.”

“Tell her I say hi.”

Julie nods, rolls the cart a few feet before she says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t even think. You and Lyla used to be--”

“It’s fine, Julie.” He grabs a can of baked beans. “That’s been over for a long time. I don’t even think about it anymore.”

“Oh, okay. Right.” Julie can’t figure out why Tim Riggins, of all people, makes her feel stupid. 

She’s just about to dash a few aisles over to avoid more unnecessary and embarrassing assumptions when Tim asks, “You want to have lunch some time?”

“Lunch?” She presses her lips together and looks at him, the broad set of his shoulders, the tangle of his hair, the set of his mouth. Julie thinks it’s probably a bad idea. “Sure.”

 

 

 

They eat at Chili’s even though Julie told Tim the manager still hates her because of the one time she accidentally dropped a tray of food on his foot. Tim laughs, loud and hearty, and it makes Julie scrunch her eyebrows together and glare at him. 

“How’s Coach?” Tim asks. 

“Good.” Julie takes a sip of water, thinks her throat should feel drier than it does; she thinks this should be more awkward and stilted than it is. “His team finally made it to the semi-finals this year.”

“Took him longer to turn them around than the Lions.” There’s a smile playing on Tim’s face before he takes a gulp of his beer. “Maybe he should come back to Texas.”

Julie shakes her head. “Mom really likes it there. Both of them do. And besides, Dillon’s the worst.” She stabs a piece of steamed broccoli and chews it with determination before mumbling, “Everyone thinks they know everything.”

“You okay?”

“Fine.” She stabs another vegetable and then shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I’m fine.”

Tim doesn’t say anything, just takes another pull of his beer and looks out the window. Julie follows his lead. It’s bright outside and she squints, the sun reflecting off a few windshields. The sky’s too blue and the grass it too brown. It’s different from the warmth of the restaurant, harsher and sharper.

“It’s just hard, you know?” Julie says, finally turning to look at Tim again. 

“I don’t,” he says. 

She smiles, the sad kind of smile that makes her want to curl up on the couch with a glass of wine and a good tragedy, the kind of smile she wishes she didn’t have to give anymore. Julie wants to find some way to make herself happier. “I still feel it sometimes, the ring, like a phantom limb or something.”

Tim looks at her. Julie doesn’t think there’s pity in his eyes, but an honesty that makes her stomach curl. It’s nice. “You want a beer?” he asks. 

Julie laughs, hallow. “Sure.”

 

 

 

They’re sitting in raggedy lawn chairs on Tim’s half-finished back porch, sipping beers and watching the clouds roll closer. The sky is dark and the air is humid, making everything feel damp and sticky.

Julie’s been in Dillon for three months. She got a job at the high school that starts next week, she’s still living with Lyla, and she hasn’t returned her mom’s phone call from two days ago. Sometimes, at night, she runs her right thumb over her left ring finger and thinks about all the things her life could have been and would have been. 

She’s not sure this is better, but she’s not sure it’s worse either. 

Julie’s mostly happy, and she thinks that’s good enough for now; she’s on an upswing, anyway. 

“Remember the tornado?” she asks. Because things weren’t easier or simpler then, but the past tastes a little bitter and a lot like nostalgia on her tongue. Julie thinks it tastes better than the beer sweating in her palm. 

Tim looks at her slowly, unsure. “Yeah.”

“Thanks.” Julie bites her lip, looks out across the field. 

She doesn’t add “for everything,” and she doesn’t know if Tim knows, but she thinks that doesn’t really matter. 

He says, “You’re welcome,” and reaches across the space between them. They clink their beers together. 

 

 

 

It ends like this: 

Tim’s hand spread over her back, bunching up her shirt, his tongue slipping into her mouth. He tastes like alcohol and salt and something else that Julie thinks may or may not be appealing -- she can’t decide.

She’s moving to New York to work for a small press; she’s moving closer to her parents and Gracie Bell and away from the only town she’s ever really called home. 

Tim bites at her lip and Julie fists her hands in his shirt, pulls him closer. 

She whispers, “Friends?” against his mouth, backing them up until her legs hit the couch. 

He laughs, “Friends.”


End file.
